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Backup Direct Professional PC/Mac Service Level Agreement...

What is Backup Direct Professional PC/Mac?

‘Backup Direct Professional PC’ or ‘Backup Direct Professional Mac’ (“The Service”) provides internet-based electronic vaulting for scheduled backup of customer-selected data and the restore or recovery of that data upon request. When installed correctly and used in accordance with the defined requirements and guidelines, the service is able to protect PC and Mac based data and open files using Microsoft VSS technology (Volume Shadow copy Service).

The online service is operated through an agent-based application installed on each PC/Mac to be protected. This application will show the status of recent backup and restore jobs, and permit the set-up and modification of data selection for backup as well as a number of other application behaviour settings. A web-based interface (called ‘MyRoam’) is available for remote access to protected data.

For IT Managers of larger customers, access to a Management Portal can be provided (‘Support Centre’) in order that they can remotely manage their entire PC/Mac backup community.

Data protected under this service is encrypted before transmission to the data centres and remains encrypted at all times at the data centres and during a restore (so-called ‘Inflight and Offsite’).

What is an SLA and what does it mean to you ?

An SLA is a legally binding commitment to achieve a specific level of service. If this target is not achieved, the service provider will commit to compensating the customer based on previously established penalties. Consequently, a vendor willing to commit to an SLA is confident in the ability of the service and therefore creates customer reassurance.

Backup Direct views an SLA as a two-way agreement in which you the Customer also acknowledge your responsibilities to ensure the smooth operation of the supplied Service

Why are SLAs Important ?

In the vitally important area of data protection and backup, it is important that business users have a robust, cost-effective and above all, consistent level of service and performance.

What is behind Backup Direct’s SLA ?

Backup Direct has a robust and resilient technology infrastructure protecting its customer’s data. Operated by Iron Mountain (NASQ:IRM mkt cap. $4bn) two separately located, ISO27001 accredited, Tier 4 data centres (UK and mainland Europe) mirror your critical business data which ensure that no single component of hardware or software failure could cause data loss. Our Service Team operates to ITIL v3 guidelines for managed IT services (http://www.itil-officialsite.com/home/home.asp)

What SLA does Backup Direct Offer ?

Backup Direct is committed to providing exceptional customer service at every opportunity and our key customer satisfaction measure is Net Promoter Score (www.netpromoter.com). Some aspects of the supplied service such as a high level of system availability should be taken as read. Our Service Team will endeavour to provide you with that ‘extra mile’ of service that, whilst not contractual, is what we believe you deserve.

The following points should be read in conjunction with our published Terms and Conditions (see www.backupdirect.net/legal for the latest version). This SLA may also be varied from time to time.

If you have any comments or observations about our performance and the service we provide you should contact our Operations Director, Dave Wigley, on 0800 0789 438 or email david.wigley@backupdirect.net

FAQs & Basic Support

Our website www.backupdirect.net/support contains answers to frequently asked questions and includes instructions with videos for a range of typical issues such as remote data recovery and system reinstallation. Our Quick Start Service Guides can also be downloaded from this site.

You will find good information at the website but you can and should contact us directly if you have any doubt about your service and its operation.

The site https://eu.connected.com/supportcenter/Default.asp available for customers with Support Centre includes the very latest system documentation and release notes.

Customer Support Hours

support@backupdirect.net or 0800 0789 438

Your service includes free, unlimited telephone support on 0800 0789 438 or you may email requests for service/support to support@backupdirect.net

Core Customer Support Hours (a Core Day) are from 8:00am to 10:00pm seven days per week including Bank holidays.

Emergency support is available 24x7 for issues classified as Critical. Visit http://www.backupdirect.net/emergency for contact details outside Core Hours

We endeavour to answer all incoming phone calls immediately. In the event that all the Service Team members are busy we will ask you to leave a message outlining your issue.

Issue Response Times

We will discuss any reported issue with you and assess its criticality. We define the following levels :

Standard Issues - an event that does not interfere with data protection such as a request for a repeat invoice or support for data selection assistance.

High Priority Issues - an event that results in an interruption to data protection such as a failed backup or the need to recover an individual lost data file.

Critical Issues - typically full disaster recovery scenario where an entire system has been lost and urgent data recovery is required.

Issue Level Acknowledgement Time Initial Response Time Target Resolution Time
Standard Within 24 hours Within 2 days Issue dependent
High Priority Within 2 Core hours 4 Core hours 2 days
Critical Within 1 Core hour 2 Core hours Continuous Support

The final designation of your Issue is determined by Backup Direct. You must use the above contact details to register your issue and use the phone service for Critical issues.

Service Availability

Scheduled maintenance to the online service takes place for several hours each month. We guarantee that the online service will be available 100% of the time in a given month, excluding scheduled maintenance.

The automated nature of the service means that interruptions to the service (e.g. for planned maintenance) are typically recovered within a short period of time. Therefore, we will not inform you of a planned service outage or minor incidents of unplanned outage. In the event of a major service outage (where the online service is expected to be unavailable for more than 24 hours) we will endeavour to inform you of the problem using the email address you supplied to us or by posting relevant information on the support section of our website at www.backupdirect.net/support

Backup Direct is not responsible for internet downtime or your local infrastructure.

Data Transfer Speeds

Internet-based data transmission and recovery will depend on many factors including your connection speed/quality and local internet usage, rates of data changes, and total Gigabytes involved. Your internet bandwidth will have been discussed with the Backup Direct Sales Consultant to ensure you appreciate the requirements. Bandwidth latency can have a significant effect on data transfer rates – detailed performance tables can be provided separately on request.

You must ensure that you have the necessary internet bandwidth and computer processing power to manage the level of data change involved, and especially the impact on your business operations if you are running multiple accounts.

Each installation can be set to backup at different times of the day to share the internet bandwidth throughout the day and night and can operate in Passive or Aggressive mode.

Initial Upload of Data

The large amounts of data in use today can make for lengthy initial upload periods. You should discuss the initial upload with the Backup Direct Service Team to plan and implement a suitable upload strategy. You can assume an upload speed of approximately 2GB per day for each 256kbps of your available upload bandwidth.

Extended internet or network interruptions can force the retransmission of files thereby delaying the initial backup.

We advise you to add to your data selection in sensible size chunks, protecting your most critical data first.

We advise you to add to your data selection in sensible size chunks, protecting your most critical data first.

Online Restores and MyRoam Web Access

It is possible to access your protected data via the web portal http://www.backupdirect.net/myroam

From this portal, it is possible to manage key aspects of your account and also to access and recover protected files to a separate machine (with the exception of the recovery of Outlook PST files using this portal). Security Note – if files from a PC with multiple user logon accounts is backed up, it is possible for the backup service holder to recover files from the different user accounts.

Media Restores

Subject to amounts of data it is possible to request a physical copy of the protected data in the form of DVDs. This service is not intended for emergency recovery of data in short timescales but for archiving purposes and is available for data volumes <20GB.

This service will incur additional service and courier charges and should be ordered after discussion with the Backup Direct Service Team.

Management Portal (‘Support Centre’)

The Support Centre portal can be provided to permit a local IT Administrator to manage and control their community of backup accounts using the service. Facilities include adjusting storage levels, reset of passwords, silent installation of accounts, and reporting.

Custom backup rules may also be created to specifically include or exclude certain file types (e.g. exclude all jpg or mp3 files types).

Access to this service will typically incur additional service charges.

NOTE : Administrator users and Backup Direct support personnel with full access to Support Centre are able to access user’s account protected data and customers must undertake their own risk assessment for data security..

Retention, Expiration and Deletion of Data

Data is retained and purged as follows:

  • The most recent 10 versions of each file backed up are retained on the Data Centres for 90 days.
  • Files you delete from your computer are retained on the Data Centres for 90 days.
  • Files you de-select from your backup set are retained on the Data Centres for 31 days.

    • Following expiration, data will be securely deleted and no longer available to you.

    System Status and Automated Warnings

    For individual customers, Backup Direct can provide an automated warning email when an account has not recently connected to a data centre (no connection within last two weeks). This service relies on the customer providing an up to date email address to Backup Direct for this warning purpose and on keeping this email address up to date thereafter. If you opt-out of receiving communications from Backup Direct, we will not be able to provide you with automated warning messages.

    For customers with access to the Management Portal (‘Support Centre’) the responsibility for tracking accounts that are not backing up successfully resides with the customer IT Manager with access to the Support Centre.

    Your Responsibilities

    To provide a stable computer environment on which the service is installed and which meets the system operating requirements including sufficient internet bandwidth and latency performance.

    At installation (and any upgrades) you will refer to the product Release Notes and associated service documentation provided by Backup Direct and the Support Centre Management Portal through which you manage the service.

    At the time of installation you should check your computer specification against the service minimum requirements. You must contact Backup Direct in the event of a need to make significant changes to your computer environment (e.g. Operating System changes, new anti-virus services, the use of other backup products or services) or the addition of new or changed applications that you wish to include in the protected data.

    You are responsible for ensuring that all the data you wish to be protected has been selected for inclusion in the service. You will undertake regular checks that all your required data is being protected.

    Backup Direct do not advise the backup of files stored on USB disk drives attached to your computer. If a drive becomes disconnected for any reason, the files are treated as deleted, and will be removed from your protected data at the data centre following the Retention rules shown above.

    You will retain a secure note of your user name and password required for any form of data recovery.

    If you ask us to work directly with your designated IT Partner we will do so. However, ultimate responsibility for your aspects of this agreement remain with you, the customer. Backup Direct will not be responsible for slow or inappropriate responses from your IT Partner. You are responsible for the security aspects of providing any passwords or confidential information to your IT Partner and we may contact you to confirm their right to access certain information. You must inform us if your IT Partner changes and you must ensure that contact information is updated in our systems.

    You will undertake test restores at appropriate regular intervals to ensure that you can recover your critical data and inform Backup Direct Service Team of any issues encountered.

    In the event of data recovery using the service, you must have access to the appropriate level of technical knowledge to rebuild your data into your systems (if you do not have this skill yourself, you should use an IT partner or IT support company).

    To ensure that you keep the automated email warning system up to date with an appropriate email address and to contact the Backup Direct Service Team in the event of repeated system warnings.

    To provide and maintain main contact information to Backup Direct so that we can contact you in the event of an issue or for security validation.

    To provide relevant requested information to support the investigation and resolution of any identified issues with the service. This will include system log files and other important information regarding your computer infrastructure.

    To ensure your use of the Service does not affect the operation of the overall service platform. In the event that your usage is adversely affecting the overall platform, it may be suspended or terminated without liability to Backup Direct upon prior written notice (or immediately without notice in the event of a technical emergency).

    You will notify us of your desire to cancel the service, giving the appropriate notice, as described in our Terms and Conditions.

    Please refer to our full Terms and Conditions at www.backupdirect.net/legal for a complete breakdown of both your and our contractual responsibilities.

    Our Responsibilities

    To provide you with an enterprise-class backup technology and the highest level of customer service as described in this SLA and your contract with us.

    We will contact you once the service is installed and check that you are happy with the service and all is working well. We refer to this process as ‘On-Boarding’.

    In the event of technical matters, we will endeavour to provide you with one technical contact to address your issue. Where necessary we will escalate your issue to other technical specialists.

    We will assign your business to a dedicated Account Manager with whom you can discuss any aspects of the service and your requirements.

    We will prioritise and endeavour to resolve any issues you raise with the service within our target resolution times wherever possible. Please recognise that we have to prioritise all customer issues in order to address the most critical problems first. At your request, we will support you with the selection of your protected data but the ultimate responsibility for data selection resides with you at all times.

    We will provide free of charge updates to the service at regular intervals and inform you of requirements for upgrades. We will maintain your data in a secure manner and will not provide access to your data without appropriate security checks being completed. If we are not convinced of a caller’s right to access your account we will seek further clarification from a senior representative from your company.

    Our responsibility is to ensure you can recover your protected data following a problem or incident at your company. Where possible, we will help with re-integrating your data into your company systems but our responsibility ends with recovery of your protected data. Our Service Team have the right to withdraw from providing further support if they believe they may be putting your systems at risk; or you lack the technical expertise required; or your request is outside the scope of our service commitment. We will contact you at least once a year to seek your customer Net Promoter (satisfaction) Score and any feedback you may have. We will act on your feedback.

    Should you choose to leave Backup Direct we will make your departure as smooth as possible and continue to support you until the end of the contracted term and assist where possible with account closure and data transfer.

    Financial Claims

    If you wish to make a claim for non-conformance against this SLA you should do so in writing to support@backupdirect.net citing your reasons in full within 10 calendar days of the online service interruption.

    Online service availability in a given month (excluding planned maintenance) Rebate (% of monthly recurring charge)
    Less than 100% and greater than or equal to 98.0%10%
    Less than 98.0% and greater than or equal to 95.0%20%
    Less than 95.0%30%

    Service Downtime is measured from the time a Case is raised with us by you until the online backup Service is restored. Downtime does not include any element associated with any problem on your local computer / infrastructure or the internet but refers exclusively to the online backup service.

    You are not entitled to a credit if you are in breach of our contractual agreement.

    Our Directors will review any incident you raise.

    Footnote

    Open files backup not supported for Mac Operating Systems nor are most open databases on PC platforms. Such database applications (e.g. Sage/Quickbooks/Access) should be backed up as a ‘closed’ database or as a dedicated application-generated backup file. If you have any concerns you should call us for assistance.

    Backup Direct Professional PC/Mac - Connected Service - Service Level Agreement (SLA) Ver 10.0

    This Service Level Agreement is available to download as a PDF (489kb) by clicking here.